The biggest festivals in Ireland: 10 events you must see
Discover the biggest festivals in Ireland, from Electric Picnic to the Cork Jazz Festival: where they are, when they happen and how artists can play them.
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The best-known festivals in the UK: 10 events worth the trip
The United Kingdom gave Europe the greenfield camping festival and still sets much of the template: a Somerset farm that becomes a temporary city, an August in Edinburgh with a show on every corner, a classical season in a Victorian hall and a Caribbean carnival in west London. This guide introduces the ten best-known festivals in the UK, with where and when they take place, what to expect and a tip for each.
Festival culture in the United Kingdom is bound up with two things: the countryside and the bank holiday. Since 1970, when a Somerset dairy farmer opened his fields to a small crowd, the greenfield camping festival has become a British summer ritual, complete with wellington boots, unpredictable weather and a tolerance for mud that visitors from abroad find remarkable. The late-May and late-August bank holiday weekends anchor the calendar, and June, July and August are packed from Cornwall to the Highlands.
The range is as striking as the volume. Alongside the great rock and pop weekends, the UK has one of the defining arts festivals of the world in Edinburgh every August, a summer-long classical season at the BBC Proms, a Caribbean carnival in west London, and a dance-music tradition born in club culture that runs from Creamfields to Parklife in Manchester and Boomtown near Winchester. Wales and Scotland add the Eisteddfod and Celtic folk traditions, and Northern Ireland has a lively calendar of its own around Belfast.
Tickets for the major festivals are sold online months in advance, and the most famous ones sell out very quickly, so on-sale dates matter. Most sites are served by trains, official coaches and shuttle buses, cashless payment is the norm and camping is usually included in a weekend ticket. The things to plan around are the weather, which can turn from sunshine to downpour in an afternoon, and accommodation in host cities such as Edinburgh. The list below is ordered roughly by fame and deliberately mixes genres.
The festivals
Glastonbury Festival
Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, known simply as Glastonbury, is the festival against which all others in Britain are measured. It began in 1970 on Worthy Farm, Michael Eavis's dairy farm in the Somerset village of Pilton, and has grown into a temporary city of stages, fields, markets and campsites for five days in late June. Music is only part of it: theatre, circus, cabaret, comedy and a strong green and campaigning ethos have been in the mix from the start, and the Pyramid Stage has become the festival's emblem.
Worthy Farm lies between Glastonbury and Shepton Mallet, with Bristol the nearest large city and Castle Cary the nearest railway station, from which shuttle buses run to the site. The bill spans rock, pop, hip-hop, dance, folk and world music, and the smaller fields, from the late-night areas to the Green Fields, are as much a reason to go as the headliners. Almost everyone camps, and a sense of pilgrimage runs through the weekend.
Tip: Register on the official website well before tickets go on sale, as a registration with a photo is required to buy one, and check the dates first because the festival does not run every year.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the open-access arts festival that turns the Scottish capital into one vast stage every August. It started in 1947, when a handful of theatre companies arrived uninvited at the newly founded Edinburgh International Festival and performed on its fringes, and that principle survives: anyone with a show and a venue can take part. Comedy, theatre, cabaret, dance, circus, children's shows and music run from morning until the early hours, and careers in British comedy are still made here.
The Fringe spreads across the whole city, from purpose-built theatres and university halls to pubs, churches, basements and courtyards, while the Royal Mile fills with street performers and flyer-waving casts. It runs alongside the Edinburgh International Festival, the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo on the castle esplanade and the book and art festivals, so August in Edinburgh is really several festivals at once.
Tip: Performers register through the official Fringe office and arrange their own venue; visitors should book accommodation months ahead and mix planned shows with free and pay-what-you-can ones.
Reading and Leeds Festivals
Reading and Leeds are twin festivals held on the same August bank holiday weekend, with a shared line-up that swaps between the two sites over three days. Reading traces its roots to the National Jazz Festival of 1961 and has been held on Richfield Avenue in Reading since 1971, making it one of the oldest music festivals in the country; the Leeds edition was added in 1999. For generations of British teenagers it is the first festival after exam results, and the atmosphere is loud, young and exuberant.
The Reading site sits beside the Thames on the edge of the Berkshire town, under an hour from London by train, while Leeds takes place in the parkland of Bramham Park near Wetherby, north-east of Leeds. The bill has moved with the times from rock and indie towards pop, hip-hop and dance, but guitar bands remain central, and both sites have large campsites and several tented stages alongside the main stage.
Tip: Arrive on the Thursday to secure a decent camping pitch, and expect the campsites to stay awake long after the last band has finished.
Notting Hill Carnival
Notting Hill Carnival is the Caribbean carnival of west London and one of the great free street events of Europe. It grew out of the Caribbean community that settled in Notting Hill in the 1950s and 1960s and has been held on the streets since 1966, on the August bank holiday weekend. Over two days, costumed mas bands, steel bands and floats parade through the neighbourhood, while sound systems on street corners play reggae, dub, soca, dancehall, house and drum and bass to dense, dancing crowds.
The carnival takes place in the residential streets around Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, with Sunday traditionally given over to children and families and Monday to the main parade. Steel bands compete in the Panorama contest on the Saturday evening, and Caribbean food stalls line the route. It is a community event first and a spectacle second, which is precisely its charm.
Tip: Use the Underground stations the organisers recommend rather than the nearest one, travel light and agree a meeting point, because mobile signal is unreliable in the crowds.
Download Festival
Download is the home of rock and metal in the UK. It was launched in 2003 at Donington Park, the racing circuit that had hosted the legendary Monsters of Rock festivals from 1980 onwards, and it inherited that heritage along with the site. Over a long weekend in June, metal, hard rock, punk and alternative bands play several stages, with a crowd known for its loyalty, its black T-shirts and a friendliness that surprises first-time visitors expecting something fiercer.
Donington Park lies next to East Midlands Airport in Leicestershire, roughly between Derby, Nottingham and Leicester, and the festival grounds spread across the fields around the circuit. Camping is part of the experience, with a village of bars, funfair rides and entertainment that opens before the music starts. The smaller tents are where fans discover the bands that will fill the main stage in a few years.
Tip: Bring wellies whatever the forecast says, because the Donington fields have a reputation for mud, and book campsite upgrades early if a quieter night matters.
Creamfields
Creamfields is the flagship dance festival of the UK and grew out of Cream, the Liverpool club night that helped define British house music in the 1990s. First held in 1998, it settled at Daresbury in Cheshire and has become an August bank holiday weekend of house, techno, trance and drum and bass, staged in enormous tents and on open-air stages with production that rivals any arena show. The crowd is young, colourful and there to dance from the first set to the last.
Daresbury is a village near Warrington, between Liverpool and Manchester, and the site is farmland transformed for the weekend into a dance city with a large campsite. International DJs share the bill with live electronic acts and homegrown names from the north-west, and each stage tends to keep its own style, so purists and generalists both find their corner. Fireworks and stage effects are part of the language of the place.
Tip: The official coaches and shuttle buses from Liverpool, Manchester and Warrington are the easiest way in, and earplugs are worth packing for the campsite as well as the tents.
Isle of Wight Festival
The Isle of Wight Festival carries one of the most storied names in British music. The original festivals of 1968, 1969 and 1970 became part of rock legend, and when the event was revived in 2002 it turned that heritage into a relaxed, broad-appeal June weekend. Today it mixes classic rock and pop acts with current chart names and rising bands, and draws a mixed crowd of families, couples and groups of friends who treat the ferry crossing as the start of a holiday.
The festival takes place at Seaclose Park in Newport, the island's county town, on the banks of the River Medina. Getting there is part of the fun: ferries and fast catamarans run from Southampton, Portsmouth and Lymington, and the island's beaches and countryside make it easy to extend the trip. Camping is on site, and the atmosphere is friendlier and less frantic than at the bigger mainland weekends.
Tip: Book ferry crossings together with the festival ticket, as boats around the weekend fill up quickly, and consider staying an extra day to see the island.
BBC Proms
The BBC Proms are a summer-long season of classical concerts held mainly at the Royal Albert Hall in London, running since 1895, when the impresario Robert Newman and the conductor Henry Wood set out to bring orchestral music to a wider audience at low prices. That idea survives in the promenaders, who queue on the day for inexpensive standing places in the arena and gallery. Every concert is broadcast by the BBC, and the Last Night, with its flags and singalongs, is a national ritual.
The Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington is the main home of the season, with chamber and late-night Proms in other London venues and occasional Proms in cities around the UK. The programme runs from symphonies and opera in concert to new commissions, early music, jazz, film music and family concerts, performed by orchestras and soloists from Britain and abroad. The audience is unusually varied for classical music, and the standing tickets keep it that way.
Tip: Promming tickets for the arena are sold on the day, so arrive early for popular concerts and be prepared to stand for the whole performance.
WOMAD
WOMAD, the World of Music, Arts and Dance, is the UK's festival of global music, founded in 1982 with the musician Peter Gabriel among its creators. Its idea was simple and ahead of its time: to bring artists from every continent onto the same stages as Western performers and let audiences discover them. Over a long weekend in late July, musicians, dancers and storytellers from across the world perform, and the mood is curious, gentle and strongly family-oriented, with workshops as important as the concerts.
Since 2007 WOMAD has been held in the grounds of Charlton Park, a country estate near the Wiltshire town of Malmesbury, roughly between Bristol and Swindon. Alongside the main and tented stages there are children's areas and the Taste the World stage, where artists cook a dish from home while they talk and play. Acts range from traditional ensembles and folk singers to Afrobeat, Latin, electronic and fusion projects.
Tip: Bring the children and plan around the workshops as much as the concerts, because that is where WOMAD is most itself.
Love Supreme Jazz Festival
Love Supreme is the greenfield jazz festival of the UK, launched in 2013 as a camping weekend for a genre that had mostly been confined to concert halls and city venues. Held in early July, it pairs jazz legends and the new British jazz generation with soul, funk, hip-hop and world music, and the atmosphere is unusually relaxed: picnic blankets, deckchairs and a crowd of every age. With the London Jazz Festival in November and the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in spring, it anchors the British jazz calendar.
The setting is Glynde Place, a country house and estate in the South Downs near Lewes in East Sussex, a short train ride from Brighton. Concerts take place on an outdoor main stage and in large tents, with camping in the surrounding fields. The line-up deliberately crosses over, so a devoted jazz audience and visitors who simply want a good summer weekend near the coast both feel at home.
Tip: Glynde has its own small railway station on the line from Brighton via Lewes, so the train is the easiest way to arrive without a car.
For artists and organisers
Festivals in the UK are booked by in-house programmers and booking agents, with most headline slots confirmed the winter before. For new acts the routes in are well established: BBC Introducing stages at many large festivals, Glastonbury's Emerging Talent Competition, showcase events such as The Great Escape in Brighton, and the open-access Fringe, where an act brings its own show. City councils, Pride events, food festivals and county shows book a great many local acts every year, and EuroActs profiles help those bookers find DJs, bands and acts by city, category and travel area.
For organisers of smaller festivals, village fetes, street parties, student events and city celebrations, the question is how to find good acts without an agency mark-up. On EuroActs, artists and venues are listed with their category, location and working area, and organisers contact them directly, without commission or intermediary. That keeps the budget where it belongs: with the performers on stage and the sound, lights and crew that carry the day.
Frequently asked questions
Which is the biggest festival in the UK?
Glastonbury is the most famous and, by the size of its site and its five-day programme, among the very largest, although it does not take place every year. Reading and Leeds, Creamfields, Download and the Isle of Wight Festival are the biggest music weekends in their genres, Notting Hill Carnival draws a huge free crowd, and the Edinburgh Fringe is in a category of its own by the sheer number of shows.
When is the festival season in the UK?
The main season runs from May to September, with the late-May and late-August bank holiday weekends as bookends and June, July and August at its heart. Glastonbury and Download fall in June, WOMAD and Love Supreme in July, and Reading and Leeds, Creamfields and Notting Hill Carnival share the August bank holiday, while the Proms run into September. Winter fixtures include Celtic Connections in Glasgow in January and the London Jazz Festival in November.
How do you get tickets for Glastonbury?
Tickets are only sold through the official channels, and every buyer has to be registered in advance with a photo. Sales usually open in the autumn before the festival and sell out very quickly, with a resale of returned tickets in the spring. Volunteering with one of the festival's partner charities or working on site is the other established route in. Nothing is sold at the gate.
Are there free festivals in the UK?
Yes. Notting Hill Carnival is free, as are the street performances on the Royal Mile during the Edinburgh Fringe and the many free and pay-what-you-can shows around it. Bristol Harbour Festival, Pride events in most cities and council-run city festivals cost nothing to attend. The major camping festivals, by contrast, are ticketed and sell out well ahead.
How can artists get booked at festivals in the UK?
Start with the routes designed for it: BBC Introducing, Glastonbury's Emerging Talent Competition, showcase festivals such as The Great Escape and the open-access Fringe. Beyond that, bookers and agents look for a clear profile, good live video, a realistic travel area and a track record at smaller events, so regional festivals and city celebrations are often the first real stage. A EuroActs profile makes an act findable for exactly those local organisers.
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